SEO isn’t an option for small businesses today. When a potential customer searches for your product or service and you’re competitors show up higher than your site then you might as well be invisible. One of the recommendations I frequently give as an SEO consultant is to optimize your images. A lot of websites have images that are relatively large, which take a lot of time to load. Resizing your images can speed up the loading time. Use the rel=nofollow tag in the links to websites that you do not trust, you think maybe using spamming techniques or you do not want to help in the search engines. Giving your personal opinion and opening up a little bit goes a long way towards creating rapport with your audience. Like many things, of course, don’t overdo it!

The Role of Relevance

Before you publish, please proofread! Google doesn’t like spelling or grammar errors. Oh and don’t try to hide your keywords by, for example, placing them behind images because Google is much smarter than that. Search engines like aged domains, and give them more authority over newer sites. When it comes to getting your website ranked highly then keywords are still an essential part of Google’s ranking algorithm, they are the very backbone of search engine (even Yahoo) after all. But keywords aren’t what they might always appear to be. A headline is usually the first thing we notice when accessing a search engine, and this reminds us that a headline should be: valuable, relevant, simple and appealing.

Does the content look high quality, or is it just a list of keywords?

Pick a niche that has a large enough appeal to give you a big market but at the same time, pick a niche that won’t be too competitive for you to make any dent in. Look for subject matters that cater to a specific audience and that people can really get passionate about. The secret to building a blog that gets crazy backlinks, ranks for awesome keywords and makes you money on autopilot? It takes time to research your market and industry. It takes time to perform the necessary analyses. And it takes time to product quality content. By incorporating backlinks to reputable sources and optimizing your internal links, you can quickly raise your website’s domain authority from the teens to the forties or so.

The Value of “Big” Content

As a rule of thumb, the easier you acquire a link, the less value it will likely have. You have to think outside of the box (link building is not just guest posting). It’s generally accepted that using copyright notices and legal disclaimers can be seen as a positive sign by Google as these will make your website look more professional and more like a ‘real business’. As we spend more time on our mobile devices, it is becoming more integral that websites cater to the mobile-user. This is becoming known as mobile first. In fact, mobile friendliness has now been confirmed by Google as a ranking factor for searches, making it a vital component for your SEO strategy. Gaz Hall, from SEO Hull, had the following to say: "While there plenty of differences between SEO and content marketing, there are also many areas where they overlap. Taking advantage of this overlap and using it in your website is the quickest way to get more people to visit your site."

Keywords are used by search engines as an indication as to what a page is offering

Google is better at working out what a page is about, and what it should be about to satisfy the intent of a searcher. Google has become tremendously more sophisticated about the signals that it does consider when it comes to applying relevance of keywords to a particular site. Do not copy another site’s content without asking permission first. It’s bad for you, the site you’re copying from and the reader too. But the blogging holy grail is just this: A quality blog improves your Google ranking, which will draw leads to your website and encourage them to make purchases.